AS MAREK OZIEWICZ OBSERVES, "THERE IS LITTLE DOUBT among
scholars today that Tolkien and Lewis started a new genre especially
steeped in myth" (65). This genre, perhaps most adequately referred
to as "secondary world fantasy," (1) has become one of the
most popular types of contemporary "fantastic" writing, at the
same time playing an essential role in what is sometimes described as
"twentieth century mythological revival" or
"twentieth-century rehabilitation of myth." (2) The
mythological affiliations of fantasy as well as the cultural, social,
psychological, and ideological significance of the phenomenon has been
extensively discussed by numerous researchers and critics. We might
mention here, by way of example, inspiring discussions of the presence
and function of mythic structures in particular fantasy texts (notably
those by J.R.R. Tolkien or Ursula K. Le Guin, who have become
universally regarded as archetypal mythopoeic fantasy writers) by Jeanne
M. Walker, Tom Shippey, Pauline Archell-Thompson, Milena Bianga, or
Micha} Stawicki, and also more synthetic and theoretical treatments of
mythopoeic fantasy as a whole provided by Oziewicz (3) or Le Guin
herself. (4)

The present article ventures to discuss a recent novel by the
Japanese writer Miyuki Miyabe, The Book of Heroes (published in English
in 2009). This interesting work, while retaining the core assumptions of
mythopoeic fantasy, at the same time considerably breaches or actually
subverts its semantic and ideological patterns.

My subsequent discussion will be divided into two principal parts.
In the following section I will attempt to specify my understanding of
mythopoeic fantasy and summarize its predominating conventions and
meanings. In the next section I will discuss how these paradigms are
transformed in Miyabe's novel.

Mythopoeic Fantasy

Although it might be difficult to find a contemporary fantasy book
completely devoid of some mythic elements, it is, on the other hand, by
no means justifiable to qualify all books of the genre as mythopoeic. In
the present section I will try to delimit mythopoeic fantasy in the true
sense and distinguish it from numerous works in which mythic elements
are applied more superficially.

In the first place it might be useful to draw a line between what I
have approximated in another publication as the "episodic" and
the "structural" mythopoeia (Trebicki, "Mythic
Elements" 32).

In the case of episodic mythopoeia, mythic motifs appear either
with a low intensity or in a way that is relatively fragmented and
isolated. They constitute a purely scenographic element or simply inform
the plot. By way of example, we can mention here numerous
"contemporary" fantasy works, (5) set in our
"primary" world, in which the textual reality has been
enriched by various fantastical elements, usually borrowed from
particular mythologies or folk traditions. Thus, Neil Gaiman's
Anansi Boys (2005) includes frequent references to African myths and
legends. The protagonists of The Art of Arrow Cutting (1997) by Stephen
Dedman have to fight demons of traditional Japanese mythology. Creatures
of Irish mythology invade ordinary reality in War for the Oaks (2001) by
Emma Bull or The Wild Reel (2004) by Paul Brandon. In all those texts
the primary function of the mythic motifs is to evoke a sense of wonder
in the reader or make the plot more attractive. The texts in question
offer no complex ontological systems of their own and when they employ
the existing ones, they tend to rely on the superficial attractiveness
of various mythic elements rather than try to convey their deeper
significance and original meanings. They rarely attempt to offer "a
holistic vision" of the universe (Oziewicz 71) or reenact the
cosmic struggle between good and evil. They are driven by the
conventions of the romance, the detective story or the adventure story
rather than by mythical archetypes.

The case of works such as Steven Erikson's The Malazan Book of
The Fallen (1999-) set in autonomous secondary universes is, perhaps, a
bit more complex. On the surface, "the myth as a thematic motif is
constantly recurring there, and the anthropological interest in
different peoples and races, existing within the world of the cycle,
their beliefs, customs and mythology is evident" (Trebicki,
"Mythic Elements" 37n34). On the other hand, the cycle
presents, in fact, a reductionist rather than holistic attitude towards
myth (compare Oziewicz passim). Here, "it does not convey
transcendental truths with the help of symbols and archetypes, but
rather obscures 'real' historical (ancient as they might be)
events" (37n34). It should be also emphasized that gods or other
supernatural beings, although technically transcendental, "in fact
belong to the sphere of perfectly mundane pragmatism and differ from
mortals only in the scope of power" (37n34). Above all (like the
"contemporary" fantasy texts mentioned earlier) the cycle does
not offer a holistic, ethical vision of the world, a feeling of moral
unity which can (and must) be pursued by the protagonists in their
quests.

Having thus excluded fantasy texts which only superficially employ
mythic motifs, let us now focus on works which are characterized by
structural mythopoeia. Here, "all mythic and ontological motifs
constitute the core of both the presented world's and the
plot's construction" (Trebicki, "Mythic Elements"
32). Only those texts, in my opinion, fully deserve to be qualified as
mythopoeic fantasy in the true sense. This class of works is mythopoeic,
as Oziewicz states,

not only because it is written in the language of myth--through
symbols and archetypes--or because it reflects the author's
preference for mythic materials and structures; it is also
mythopoeic because it is written in "the poetics of myth," with a
specific attitude to its material. If myths can be distinguished
from legends, fairy-tales, fables and other types of stories by the
fact that they were, at some point, believed to be true, mythopoeic
fantasy takes over this attitude. It is, as Jared Lobdell puts it,
essentially a "believing fantasy"--a soul-nurturing, integrative
type of literature [...]. [I]t is a visionary genre: a story about
what it is to be human, to live in the world, to participate in a
value system [...]. And since for mythopoeic fantasists our
humanness is to great extent constituted by the recognition of the
ethical dimensions of existence, mythopoeic fantasy is a story
about the protagonists' struggle to meet specific moral imperatives
in the secondary world; the story which suggests why similar
imperatives in the primary world demand certain kinds of
behavior. (84)

Obviously, mythopoeic fantasy does not simply quote or rewrite
unreflectively traditional mythological material. Instead, it
artistically reworks, re-imagines, and reconfigures mythic
elements--archetypes, plot structures, characters, events, or motifs
(Oziewicz 84). As a result, it creates new meanings which, while
structurally relying on traditional mythic patterns, are culturally
useful and cognitively inspiring in the modern context.

So understood, mythopoeic fantasy encompasses a broad range of very
diverse texts, but certain prevailing features can be easily
approximated. Mythopoeic fantasy "provides an imaginative
experience of a world in which metaphysical concepts are objective
realities and the protagonists' responses to those realities
reflect on their lives" (Oziewicz 84). It strongly relies on
Tolkien's concepts of fantasy, recovery, escape, and consolation
but it also, at the same time "feeds the belief in the ultimate
conquest of death based on the perception of the essential oneness and
continuity of life. It affirms the value of life based on ideals and is
concerned with the good of the holistically conceived universe on all
levels" (Oziewicz 85). Thus, mythopoeic fantasy presents meaningful
universes in which the protagonists take part in the struggle between
good and evil, waged on a transcendental scale, whose outcome is
frequently bound to determine the fate of the whole microcosm. The plots

in most cases can be seen as a combination of the quest and
bildungsroman structures. Its quest-and-mature plot usually departs from
a certain violation of a natural order, an intrusion of the supernatural
on the life of the protagonist, who is violently wrenched from
ordinariness and faced with overwhelming demands and shattering
responsibility. The narrative situation is usually that of dire danger
on the global, universal, cosmic scale into which the protagonist gets
involved through a concatenation of events. (Oziewicz 86)

The plots of mythopoeic fantasy "must end happily"
(Oziewicz 87), but in a Tolkienesque rather than Hollywood fashion. Good
triumphs over evil and justice is done to all, but this victory is often
paid for with great sacrifice and personal loss. Nevertheless, the
protagonists are able to achieve a kind of inner harmony, a new, truly
elevated status, which enables them to enact the renewal of the
microcosm and restore the original order of the universe.

Among most notable mythopoeic fantasy books, apart from the seminal
texts by J.R.R. Tolkien (The Lord of the Rings, 1954-1956 and
Silmarillion, 1977), C.S. Lewis (The Chronicles of Narnia, 1960-1956) or
Ursula K. Le Guin (The Earthsea Cycle, 1969-2001) we can mention, by way
of example, also works by Lloyd Alexander (Prydain Chronicles,
1964-1973), Madeleine L'Engle (Time Quartet, 1962-1986), Patricia
McKillip (The Riddlemaster Trilogy, 1976-1979), Stephen Donaldson (The
Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever, 1977-), Tad Williams
(Memory, Sorrow And Thorn, 1988-1993), Guy Gavriel Kay (Fionovar
Tapestry, 1984-1986) or Tanith Lee (Volkhavaar, 1977). All these
books--as well as many others--testify to the successful revival of
mythopoeic literature in the twentieth century.

It also seems that within this broadly drawn collection we could
distinguish texts which might be additionally labelled as
"self-conscious mythopoeic fantasy." Unsurprisingly, the names
of Tolkien, Lewis and Le Guin again surface here. The above authors not
only consciously employ mythic patterns to create their meanings, they
also overtly comment on the significance of myth and myth-making both in
individual and social life. (6) Furthermore, the very texts themselves
more or less directly draw the reader's attention to their
mythopoeic content, emphasizing its relevance. (7)

Perhaps a bit paradoxically, Miyabe's novel clearly falls into
the category of self-conscious mythopoeic fantasy. It not only employs
mythic structures; it also openly makes the myth (or, more precisely,
following the myth) its main subject. In many respects, it is a
quintessential mythopoeic fantasy, as it follows most of the narrative
patterns summarized above. Yet, at the same time, it appears
disturbingly subversive towards some of the traditional messages of the
genre. In the subsequent section, we will take a closer look at the book
and discuss it in reference to prevailing concepts of mythopoeic fantasy
(particularly those introduced by Tolkien or Lewis).

Subverting the Patterns

On the surface, The Book of Heroes appears to be a typical
initiation-quest fantasy. The book recounts the story of Yuriko
Morisaki, an eleven year old contemporary Japanese schoolgirl who lives
with her parents and her elder brother, Hiroki. Yuriko's peaceful
life gets shattered when one day Hiroki unexpectedly stabs two of his
classmates (one of whom subsequently dies) and then disappears without a
trace. This is the start of a very hard time in Yuriko's life: her
parents are being continually questioned by the police and pursued by
the media, and the girl herself gets stigmatized at school as the sister
of a murderer. When she loses any hope of finding Hiroki, suddenly one
of her brother's books speaks to her in her mind and thus the girl
enters the fantastical world she never suspedted to exist.

The book, an ancient dictionary (called by its friends
"Ayu") tells Yuriko what has really occurred. Her brother had
acquired the forbidden and dangerous Book of Elem, an incarnation of the
eternal story or myth sometimes called the "Hero" and
sometimes "The King in Yellow," which possessed the boy, made
him commit the crime and then took over his body. Yuriko at first cannot
completely grasp Ayu's explanations but agrees to take it to the
house of Ichiro Minochi, her long-deceased relative, from which Hiroki
took both Ayu and the Book of Elem. There the girl meets some other
books, even wiser and more powerful than Ayu, which start to acquaint
her with the basic principles of the reality she has entered.

The very concept of "myth" or "story" lies at
the core of the ontology of the fictional universe. The physical world
as we perceive it turns out to be just a single "region"
within a much larger "Circle." The Circle, as the wisest of
the books, the Sage, informs Yuriko "is born of words. It only
begins to exist the moment men first attempt to understand the natural
world around them. It is power, it is a desire, it is hope, wishes, and
prayer" (63). The Circle is made up of all myths, all stories
created by man, and is much larger than physical reality. In other
words, it is, in a way, within the Circle that human souls and hearts
really reside. "It is within this Circle that stories cycle"
(64). If the stories stop to cycle, the Circle is destroyed, and,
consequently, "all culture and civilization would vanish from the
world" (69). The Circle consists also of other regions--worlds
created by human imagination, especially by writers, between which the
initiated ones can travel more or less freely.

In the whole Circle there is one particular, central place--the
source and origin of all stories, from which they come and to which they
return. It is called "the Nameless Land" and it is also the
place "where the great story known as the Hero was imprisoned"
(65), guarded by the "nameless devout."

This is, obviously, an extremely mythopoeic vision--in
Miyabe's universe myths, stories lie at the core of all creation
not only metaphorically but, in fact, quite literally. The world as it
really is, the ultimate reality of the Circle, after all, is technically
composed of stories. Here all stories automatically become true in the
primary, original way, as Tolkien phrased it in the Epilogue to his
seminal essay "On Fairy-Stories."

At first sight the book seems to glorify myths and mythmaking--in a
way largely analogous to those implied in Lewis's, Tolkien's,
or Le Guin's writings. However, when we look more closely into this
vision, disturbing elements begin to surface.

The main antagonist of the novel--the Hero--is the archetype of all
heroic myths, the most powerful of the stories in the Cycle that exists
in numerous incarnations and continually affects both the cycle
and--indirectly--the physical reality. It is, as the Sage explains

the story that is the source of all the greatest deeds. The heroes
who exist in [our] Cycle all spring from this original story. [.]
When people in the world do something great or upstanding, they are
called heroes [.] and when their stories are told over the years,
it means a copy of the Hero has been created. Because these copies
of the Hero are themselves stories, they in turn feed the strength
of the original story. [.] As history progresses, all manner of
heroes are born and their great deeds are told of, and told of
again, increasing the Hero's power. (62)

Unfortunately, there exists also a dark side of the Hero because

if a beautiful, noble story shines very brightly, then the shadow
it casts must be also very deep. This shadow too is the Hero. Like
a coin, a story must have a front and back, right and wrong. Light
and darkness always exist together, and there is no one who might
separate them. [...] In the original story of the Hero, there is
darkness and evil in equal measure to light and good. Both sides
grow together in a contest that continues to this day. [.] And if
the dark side of the source should deepen, so too does the dark
side of the copies deepen and grow stronger. (62-3)

Thus, the Hero is an extremely dangerous story. As Ayu states, its
real nature is conflict. "It manipulates people, starts wars, turns
the world on its head" (39). Therefore, it must be at least partly
subdued and imprisoned in the Nameless Land, since "[w]hile you
cannot sweep away the light and the dark that already exists in this
Circle, you can prevent them from further increasing" (63).

This concept is--in a manner of speaking--rather anti-heroic.
Although it is acknowledged that the Hero is the source of many good and
brave deeds, this myth (as well as all the stories which derive from it)
is primarily perceived as an immense threat, which constantly brings
conflict into the world and makes it a violent place, destroying its
balance. We can observe a total reversal of the traditional pattern
here--in the works of Lewis, Tolkien, and their followers heroism
(despite occasional downfalls or the weaknesses of particular heroes) is
something unquestioningly noble and desirable. Mythic heroic figures are
set as ideals to be followed. In the universe created by Miyabe there
is, in fact, no greater sin than following a myth. It is quite
imaginable that The Lord of The Rings or The Chronicles of Narnia might
be, in fact, regarded here too as copies of the Hero, perhaps much more
genuine (and therefore more dangerous) than the fictitious Book of Elem
which possessed Hiroki.

The idea is very confusing for Yuriko (as well as for the reader)
who constantly refuses to grasp the truth of the Hero. To makes things
easier for her, the Sage proposes that the good of the Hero be called
"hero" and its dark side "The King in Yellow" (from
the title of the book which turned out to be one of the most successful
copies of the original story). (8) Yet, he (and other subsequent guides
in Yuriko's quest) constantly emphasizes that the two are
inseparable.

Already at this stage also the ontological anti-dualism of The Book
of Heroes manifests itself clearly, contradicting and, perhaps
intentionally, engaging in an open polemics with traditional ontologies
of mythopoeic fantasy. The protagonist's role is not to take part
in the eternal struggle between good and evil and contribute to the
victory of the light over the darkness, but rather to help moderate the
intensity of this conflict. There will be no Narnian "last
battle" here--the good cannot really triumph over evil since these
are just the two sides of the same coin. The escalation of the conflict
can result only in the destruction of the whole Circle.

The Sage also tells Yuriko about her brother's downfall. To
break free from its prison in the Nameless Land, the Hero tries to lure
people who search for him, possess them, and make them provoke a
conflict. Then it subsequently consumes them entirely and its power
gradually rises. Hiroko proves to be the "last vessel"--the
Summoner who gave the Hero the final amount of power needed to shatter
its bonds. Then the Hero took the Summoner's body to manifest
itself in the Circle. Thus Hiroki has, in a way, become the King in
Yellow.

As Hiroki's closest relative Yuriko accepts the position of
"allcaste"--a person traditionally assisting in recapturing
the Hero, hoping to save Hiroki at the same time. As an allcaste she
receives the glyph--a special mark on her forehead that enables her to
travel between regions and equips her with special magical powers.

Yuriko first travels to the Nameless Land, accompanied by Ayu. This
strange place is inhabited by thousands of the nameless devout--once
humans, now featureless figures, deprived of even slightest traces of
their former individuality, who have become guardians of the Hero as a
penance for the sin they committed. It is they who provide the
protagonist with further details concerning the ontology as well as the
eschatology of the fictional reality.

The task of the nameless devout is twofold. Apart from guarding the
Hero, they have to eternally turn the two Great Wheels of Inculpation,
which "send out the stories and receive them back, maintaining the
flow of narratives" (106) and thus preserve proper balance in the
Circle. "The Pillar of Heaven, which sends out the stories, offers
joy with its song, while the Pillar of the Earth, which winds the
stories back in, offers solace" (108). It is worth noting at this
point that emphasis put on "joy" and "solace" seems
to be an intentional reference to Tolkien's ideas, included, for
example, in his essay "On Fairy-Stories."

However, when the Hero is released in the Circle, it will seek
energy for more stories. The stories will fly from the wheel to join the
Hero. As a consequence, the right wheel--the Pillar of Heaven--will spin
faster and faster until the nameless devout can no longer keep up. At
the same time, the other wheel--the Pillar of Earth--will slow down as
the Hero will use up all the stories within the confines of the Circle
and they will not return to the Nameless Land. In the end, "once
the Great Wheel of Earth has stopped spinning, the free-spinning Great
Wheel of Heaven would also slow, eventually joining in stillness"
(109). This would mean the end of the Circle. "The moment before
the Circle stopped, the Pillar of the Earth would shriek, singing its
song louder than any song heard before. This cry is the message to those
who live in the Circle that their world is ending. Some have likened it
to the sounding of the angels' trumpets" (109). Then the
surviving nameless devout would wait for the next Circle to be born.

Yuriko also inquires about the nameless devout themselves. She is
confused to find out that the sin they have committed is simply
storytelling. Her new guide, the Archdevout, tells her that stories are
lies. "It is the creation of things which do not exist. And the
telling of these things. The lies become record, form which memories are
born. But they are still lies." On the other hand, "without
these lies, men could not live. Their world could not stand. Stories are
vital to [human] kind. They need these lies to be who they are. Yet lies
are lies, and to lie is a sin" (106). This makes the very position
of the nameless devout paradoxical. The Archdevout states that

[b]y turning the Great Wheels of Inculpation we provide the lies
that the world of men seek. We work always, that the flow never be
interrupted. It is both penance for our sins and the creation of
new sin. [...] Those of us who have become the nameless devout are
guilty of committing the sin of storytelling when we were men
ourselves. This is why we now serve to bear the burden of the
story's sin for all those who live in the Circle. (106)

This explanation shocks Yuriko for whom (like the typical reader of
mythopoeic fantasy nurtured on Tolkien's ideas) "stories are
fun. They're beautiful. They make people happy" (106). When
Yuriko enquires "what about all the good that's in the
stories?", the Archdevout somewhat ambiguously concedes: "Yes,
there is much good in stories. They fill the Circle with light. But
[...] it is not so here. Not in the nameless land. Because this is the
origin of the stories, the origin of lies" (107).

Even more shocking is the fate of the nameless devout, perhaps best
summarized in this dialogue between Yuriko and the Archdevout:

"We are remains of those men who sought, in their lives, to
live a story. We are guilty of the great sin of living lies and trying
to make those lies real. This is why we lost ourselves and became the
one that is many and the many that are one--the nameless devout
[...]."

Now an even sharper need pierced Yuriko's chest: a question
that demanded an answer. "When will you be forgiven?"

"Who would forgive men of the sin of living a lie? The gods?
The gods are themselves no more than a story made by men, and lies
cannot forgive lies, let alone absolve us of them."

"You mean you're all stuck here forever? For
eternity?"

"There is no time in this land. An eternity is like moment,
and a moment like an eternity. We are only here now. There is no
then." (107-108)

Before we follow Yuriko on her quest, let us shortly reflect on the
implications of this world order in reference to traditional systems of
mythopoeic fantasy, which it seems to contradict on several levels.

First of all, the vision is adeistic or even--in the most general,
philosophical way--a religious. There are no ultimate transcendental
forces in this world, no Aslan, no Tolkienesque Providence, no Heaven or
Hell. The Circle seems to be largely a self-contained and
self-regulating mechanism, created by human imagination. The ultimate
reality is, arguably, of metaphysical nature, but it is described in
pragmatic rather than moral terms. In comparison to Lewis's or
Tolkien's Christian-inspired universes, it is also very static: it
does not offer a promise of paradise, salvation, final triumph of good
over evil, or even final triumph of justice. As we can see in the
example of the nameless devout it does not offer redemption either.
There is not much hope for Eucatastrophe here.

On the other hand, as the system of values of the book emphasizes
the necessity of maintaining a certain balance, its ontology breeds
inescapable associations with Le Guin's Earthsea Cycle and her idea
of Equilibrium. I will argue, however, that this similarity is largely
superficial. Le Guin's vision while also non-deistic in the strict
meaning of this word, at the same time retains some special
metaphysical, almost religious quality. Equilibrium is more than a
technical concept--it can be understood as an ultimate harmony and, even
if it is not religious in the traditional way, it is definitely highly
spiritual. The protagonists of The Earthsea Cycle (especially of its
three initial volumes), while following their quests to preserve
Equilibrium, do not only serve strictly pragmatic purposes but also
perform certain semi-religious rites, enabling them to achieve an
elevated spiritual awareness as well as the state of unity with their
world and its needs. Le Guin's vision is deeply moral and very
coherent ethically.

On the contrary, the system of values in The Book of
Heroes--especially if we take as a point of reference traditional
western morality, which is like mythopoeic fantasy rooted in Christian
ideas--seems confusing, ambivalent, and perhaps even incoherent. This
is, obviously, not to say that the book is immoral or nihilistic. When
it comes to the description of the more mundane plane, of physical
actions the particular individuals take, the plot very much conforms to
the traditional values of mythopoeic fantasy--loyalty, bravery,
self-sacrifice, pity, mercy, friendship, honesty, resolve to work for
the common good and protect the helpless, etc. But on a more
metaphysical level things are not that simple. The desire to perform
good deeds--or even, in fact, good deeds themselves--can lead to evil
consequences. As in the very figure of the Hero itself--the light and
the dark are inseparable. Myths inspire people, but following the myth
can result in horrible disasters.

The text's attitude towards storytelling is, perhaps, most
puzzling. People need stories as stories bring joy and solace, but
creating them is the worst of sins. They are inherently ambivalent and
they cannot be completely redeemed. There is no place for the liberating
joy and innocent, well-deserved pride of a Tolkienesque sub-creator
here.

During her stay in the Nameless Land Yuriko meets a nameless devout
who seems to have preserved some fragments of his former self as well as
some human emotions. He is also mysteriously driven towards the girl. As
a result, he is declared by other nameless devout as "defiled"
and "incomplete," expelled from the land, and made to
accompany Yuriko on her quest. The girl, who feels great sympathy and
pity towards him, names him "Sky."

At the next stage of her mission, Yuriko returns to her world to
find out more about Hiroki's seduction by the Book of Elem. Her
enquiry reveals that Hiroki tried to protect Michiru--a girl with an
ugly scar, who was bullied by other students. Although he managed to
improve Michiru's situation, he soon himself fell victim to the
persecution from the two of his schoolmates who were inspired and backed
up by an influential teacher. Filled with anger and the feeling of
helplessness and injustice done to him, he was easily possessed by the
King in Yellow and took revenge on his friends.

While Yuriko is conducting her investigation, accompanied by Ayu
and Sky, she is unexpectedly attacked by the Hero's monstrous
envoy, apparently called forth from another dimension. She is saved by
the Man of Ash, one of the "Wolves"--people whose task is to
hunt for the copies of the Hero. To Yuriko's surprise her new ally
does not come from her own world but turns out to be a fictional
character from The Haetlands Chronicle--the book written long ago, which
became another region within the Circle. It is there that The Book of
Elem originally came into being (and thus it can be regarded, in a way,
as a book within a book) and there that Yuri and her friends must
journey next, led by the Man of Ash (or simply "Ash").

After experiencing several adventures and overcoming several
obstacles (during which the relationships between Yuriko and both Sky
and Ash are also developed), Yuriko and her friends finally face their
enemy. The outcome of this confrontation takes a rather unexpected turn.
When the Hero materializes in front of the friends, Sky immediately
transforms into Yuriko's long lost bother. He barely manages to say
his "goodbye" to Yuriko as he is drawn into the Hero. At that
moment, following Ash's pleading, Yuriko uses her glyph. The Hero
escapes while Yuriko and Ash are transferred into the Nameless Land. In
front of them, a lonely figure in black robes is running. It is neither
Hiroki nor Sky anymore, but a complete nameless devout, purified now by
the glyph and deprived of any traces of his former self.

Later on, the Archdevout explains everything to Yuriko. From the
moment Sky appeared, the allcaste's real mission was not to
recapture the hero but to purify the incomplete (and also extremely
dangerous for the whole land as he still retained some connection with
the Hero) nameless devout, who had once been her brother. Ash, in turn,
in the last pages of the book, finally emphasizes the book's
message:

As people walk through their lives, they leave stories behind
them, like footprints in the sand. Yet sometimes we place stories
in front of us, choosing the brightest from those that hang in the
firmament of the Circle to guide us--and when we try to live those
stories, we fall prey to foolishness. For we are attempting to
imitate the story as we think it should be, not as it is.
These stories we follow have many names. Sometimes they're
called 'justice.' Other times 'victory' or even 'conquest.'
Sometimes they are simply called 'success.' We charge forward,
following a vision invisible to those around us. That is to sin of
trying to live a story. In our pride, we place the ideal before the
deed, and this brings only misfortune. The sin of living a story is
great indeed. So great that the last vessel becomes a nameless
devout here to atone for that sin over an eternity.
But let me be clear [...] the sin lies not with the story. Yet
the weavers know that sometimes stories can mislead our hearts.
They know this, yet they continue their weaving. This is a
conscious act that invites karmic retribution--still they are
allowed to continue in their work because they also bring hope,
goodness, beauty, warmth, and the joy of life to men. (333)

This is, needless to say, a rather confusing message. Is it always
a sin to follow an ideal, or only when we abuse it? Should the
sub-creators, weavers of especially wonderful stories and makers of
truly magical secondary universes, such as Tolkien and Lewis, be
regarded as especially great sinners in the light of the text's
system of values? Both seminal mythopoeic fantasy writers treated their
myth-making in a very serious way; we might say that, in a manner of
speaking, they lived the stories they created. Would they join the crowd
of the nameless devout? Is storytelling, is myth-making inherently and
irrevocably ambivalent, both benevolent and harmful, necessary but
requiring punishment and retribution, always bound to mislead and
inspire human hearts at the same time? The book does not give clear
answers.

At the end of the novel Yuriko is still sad; she still mourns
Hiroki but she is reconciled to her fate. Feeling that she has done her
best to fulfil the mission bestowed on her, she returns to her mundane
reality. It is additionally suggested that in the future she will become
a wolf and join the hunt for the Hero. She is also consoled that her
brother's soul "rests in the great flow of stories until such
time as it will reenter the Circle inside another life" (335).

Hiroki's fate perhaps best illustrates the ambivalent nature
of the Hero as well as the text's equally ambivalent (and perhaps
incomplete) notion of justice. Hiroki's initial desire to protect
the weak from oppression, to oppose injustice is an extremely noble one.
This is exactly what we expect of heroes. Yet, it is this desire that
brings him unredeemable doom. Most readers of mythopoeic fantasy,
nurtured on Tolkien or Lewis, would probably decide that the consolation
offered to Yuriko as well as the act of Sky's purification does not
completely satisfy their sense of justice.

Throughout the whole narration the protagonist, Yuriko, frequently
acts as a sort of "proxy agent" of the traditional values of
mythopoeic fantasy (or an involved reader of Lewis or Tolkien),
constantly questioning or opposing what is revealed to her, opting for
more idealistic solutions. But the eucatastrophe does not come. In the
end Yuriko has to accept the Cycle's order and its rules.
Obviously, the reader does not have to share her submission and can
still question the book's meanings and messages.

The Book of Heroes is a very singular volume. In many ways, as it
has been suggested, it is a quintessential mythopoeic fantasy. It
employs mythic patterns, motifs and structures. It provides "an
imaginative experience of a world in which metaphysical concepts are
objective realities and the protagonists' responses to those
realities reflect on their lives" (Oziewicz 84). It constructs a
meaningful, ethically marked universe. It presents a quest-and-mature
plot which "departs from a certain violation of a natural order, an
intrusion of the supernatural on the life of the protagonist, who is
violently wrenched from ordinariness and faced with overwhelming demands
and shattering responsibility" (Oziewicz 86). It introduces a young
protagonist assisted on her quest by magical helpers. It makes myth not
only its main structural principle but also its very subject. By all
means it is what I have called in the previous section a self-conscious
mythopoeic literature.

At the same time, it contradicts the most essential paradigms of
mythopoeic fantasy. It (perhaps intentionally) engages in an open
polemics with traditional concepts and values, such as those presented
in Tolkien's or Lewis's writings. The novel puzzles and
irritates the reader. It might be also accused of inconsistency and
incoherence as far as its ontological or ethical orders are concerned.

Arguably, Miyabe does not have the ambition of presenting a fully
unified, coherent, and powerful vision in the way Tolkien, Lewis or Le
Guin did. Yet, The Book of Heroes is not to be dismissed too lightly. It
is at least as inspiring as it is confusing. It helps us to see the work
of the seminal mythopoeic writers in a new light. It makes us rethink
and reassess our ideas about both mythopoeic literature and the very
power and meaning of myth in our lives.

The Encyclopedia of Fantasy. Ed. John Clute and John Grant. New
York: St. Martin's Press, 1999.

Le Guin, Ursula. K. "Dreams Must Explain Themselves." In
The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction. Ed.
and with introduction by Susan Wood. New York: Berkley Books, 1982.
37-46.

--. "Myth and Archetype in Science Fiction." In The
Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction. Ed. and
with introduction by Susan Wood. New York: Berkley Books, 1982. 63-72.

Manlove, Colin N. The Fantasy Literature of England. London and New
York: Macmillan Press, 1999.

Zahorski, Kenneth J., and Robert H. Boyer. "The Secondary
Worlds of High Fantasy." In The Aesthetics of Fantasy Literature
and Art. Ed. Robert C. Schlobin. Indiana and Brighton: University of
Notre Dame Press and The Harvester Press, 1982. 56-80.

GRZEGORZ TREBICKI, Ph.D., is an assistant professor at Jan
Kochanowski University, Kielce, Poland. His academic interests include
non-mimetic literature (especially secondary world fantasy) as well as
theory and genology of literature. His articles and reviews have been
published in The New York Review of Science Fiction, Extrapolation, and
Science Fiction Studies. He is currently working on his major
dissertation up-to-date--Worlds So Strange and Diverse: Towards a
Genological Taxonomy of Non-mimetic Literature.

(1) Term used, for example, by Tymn, Zahorski, and Boyer 3-28;
Zahorski and Boyer 56-81; Manlove 4; and Trebicki, Worlds So Strange
passim. It conveniently refers to Tolkien's original notion of a
"Secondary World" ("On Fairy-Stories" passim).

(2) See, especially, Oziewicz, chapter 4.

(3) Marek Oziewicz's One Earth, One People is probably the
most comprehensive and ambitious discussion of contemporary mythopoeic
fantasy in various literary, anthropological, cultural, social, and
psychological contexts up to date. My summary of the core features of
mythopoeic fantasy in section two is primarily based on this study.

(4) Several interesting insights on the use of archetypes and myths
in fantastic literature have been included in Le Guin's collection
of essays The Language of the Night. Most relevant to the subject are
especially the essays "Dreams Must Explain Themselves" and
"Myth and Archetype in Science Fiction."

(5) This short description of "contemporary" fantasy
works is based on my discussion of the possible genre of the
contemporary magical novel included in Trebicki, Worlds So Strange,
chapter 5, section 2.

(7) See, for example, Stawicki as he comments on the prominence of
myth in Le Guin's Earthsea Cycle: "[myths] are recalled, sung,
commented. In myths the meaning of events is searched for, in myths
guidance and reliance is found. Myth renders to the wizards, sailors,
fishermen and farmers of Earthsea the true, not only psychological or
ethical, but also factual knowledge. Erreth-Akbe must have existed, if
his magical ring is found by Ged. The mythical Segoy, the creator of the
world appears in Tehanu in the shape of the dragon. The mythical
genealogy of Arren [...] defines his fate, his destination as the future
king. [...] In the world of Earthsea myth is the beginning of human
life, it shapes it and determines its end. Human life is always
confronted with the truth of myth--it can confirm it or deny and it also
continues it and develops" (115-116; trans. mine).

(8) Interestingly, this refers to a real-world book--The King in
Yellow by Robert W. Chambers, published in 1895. Chambers's
collection of supernatural tales features "an eponymous fictional
book, a verse-play which drives its readers into madness and even
suicide" (Encyclopedia of Fantasy 177). Chambers's work has
influenced many writers, including H.P. Lovecraft, Marion Zimmer
Bradley, and Stephen King and, obviously, may have been known to Tolkien
and Lewis. Chambers is the only real-world author mentioned by name in
Miyabe's novel and his work appears as an obvious source of
inspiration for The Book of Heroes.

GRZEGORZ TREBICKI, Ph.D., is an assistant professor at Jan
Kochanowski University, Kielce, Poland. His academic interests include
non-mimetic literature (especially secondary world fantasy) as well as
theory and genology of literature. His articles and reviews have been
published in The New York Review of Science Fiction, Extrapolation, and
Science Fiction Studies. He is currently working on his major
dissertation up-to-date--Worlds So Strange and Diverse: Towards a
Genological Taxonomy of Non-mimetic Literature.

COPYRIGHT 2014 Mythopoeic Society
No portion of this article can be reproduced without the express written permission from the copyright holder.